Hippocrates meets Xanthippe

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Thank you Penny Wilson. General Practice is exactly this; adaptable responsive and human. We were intent as an organising committee to not pursue the traditional pedagogy of medical conferences which isolate the intellectual pursuit of excellence from the excellent pursuit of our own humanity. I am so proud we had participants holding babies we had eight year olds playing in the Sim emergency sessions and four year olds sitting on mummy’s knee while she talked on stage. Later I heard he held the microphone for a prominent Australian GP researcher. We had Charlie the rescue dog whose early traumatic and abused life was invisible as he wandered around tail wagging collecting hearts minds and pats off GP delegates. Bringing humanity into our workplace is one of my passions. Without this we are mere automatons and the risks of a less integrated life to both doctors and their patients are not inconsiderable. We were also proud to support #crazysocksforDocs on June 1st.

Keeping it real.
Never perfect.
Which is the only thing to be.

Thanks to all our contributors our participants our sponsors our critics and co-conspirators.
None of us do alone.

In it’s most basic form it’s a Facebook group of over five thousand Aussie and Kiwi GPs. Depending on the day, and who you talk to, it’s also a national park, a family, a support group, an educational resource, an advocacy platform, a source of entertainment, a soapbox and a time-sink. Sometimes it’s ablaze with controversy. Sometimes, it’s a lifeline for drowning colleagues.

Indeed, this motley crew of so many GPs from across the spectrum of cultural, geographical and clinical backgrounds was always bound to end up as complex and varied as general practice itself.

So I was interested to see what would would happen when, last week, a couple of hundred of those GPDU souls congregated on the Gold Coast for the first ever conference. And believe me, #GPDU18 was NOT your typical GP conference.

Consent for secondary use is implied if consumers don’t opt out of the MyHR. In other words, people need to take action if they don’t want their health data to be used for purposes other than direct clinical care.

To stop information flowing to third parties, consumers will have to press the ‘withdraw participation button’.

Another hot topic is the use of the data by commercial organisations which, interestingly, is permitted under the framework, provided it is ‘in the public interest’.

Great thoughts from David Dahm on the opt out issues related to the My Health Record. The ethics on the consent processneed to be examined very closely imho. Not withstanding the secondary use of your private health data does not have a framework around it as yet. Consent seems therefore flawed.

As I predicted in February 2016, your personal health record is being exposed, with or without your full knowledge. The Federal Government’s new $2bn national patient electronic health record system rollout is at full throttle.

Very well said. Being an individual and stating an opinion but it requires more to be an organisation and do the same thing. Notwithstanding a non discriminatory policy under pins all of medical practice.
Stay safe with the dialogue I say. This is good dialogue Dr Kruys. Than you.

During my medical training in Amsterdam I witnessed many of the effects of the Dutch liberal policies such as the legalised practice of euthanasia and their model on cannabis. The Netherlands was also the first country in the world to legalise same-sex marriage over 15 years ago.

When it comes to same-sex marriage I support this. Not so much because of health reasons but simply because I believe it is fair.

I acknowledge that LGBTIQ communities (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Questioning) have had a lot to endure. I also respect that there will be people who disagree with me and may have other opinions.

In Australia we now have the odd situation of the voluntary Australian Marriage Law Postal Vote, where we are asked to vote on the question: Should the law be changed to allow same-sex couples to marry?

The RACGP position

Great questions for complex systems. Whilst this references mostly performance metrics this pervasive buffoonery is also applied to health.
It lacks understanding of the sector and is misapplied.
Good to ponder and to rebut the bean counters who are necessary but should never be in charge. IMHO of course. You may have a different view. Enjoy.

I’ve been on Twitter since April 2011 — nearly six years. A few weeks ago, for the first time, something I tweeted broke the thousand-retweets barrier. And I am really unhappy about it. For two reasons.

First, it’s not my own content — it’s a screen-shot of Table 1 from Edwards and Roy (2017):

And second, it’s so darned depressing.

The problem is a well-known one, and indeed one we have discussed here before: as soon as you try to measure how well people are doing, they will switch to optimising for whatever you’re measuring, rather than putting their best efforts into actually doing good work.

In fact, this phenomenon is so very well known and understood that it’s been given at least three different names by different people:

Goodhart’s Law is most succinct: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.”

My default attitude to Pauline Hanson is that my life is too short to spend much time contemplating her, however, an interview on Sunrise (no, I’m not linking) in which she gloated about the Trump victory and sputteringly claimed that women who accuse him of sexual assault are liars and women in general should toughen up when a man, uninvited, strokes our breasts and grabs our pudendas enraged me to the extent that I have to address it.

Aside: Sunrise enrages me as well, as does all breakfast television: who the hell wants to start the day with overly-cosmeticised women in tube frocks, and self-congratulatory men in nifty suits cackling & exclaiming, not me, I’d rather listen to the parrots & wattle birds brawling outside my window, they make more sense. Somebody thoughtfully sent me a clip of the Hanson…